11th Amendment
11th Amendment
AJ 200 Diaz
04-29-2014
The 11th Amendment
Do you ever wonder why law enforcements are usually the target for law suits? Or why the state can’t be sued? Well, I’ll get into more details on that further on in my essay and the reason why I asked you this question is because most likely you never actually thought about it.
The eleventh amendment states: The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State. It has four main interpretation. The first is that it’s just saying that nobody can sue a state in a federal court without the consent of the state concerned, the second explanation is that it allows a state to be sued by a citizen of another state or of a foreign country, but not by a citizen of the state itself, an example would be that a citizen from Oahu can’t sue the state but a citizen from California can, the third explanation is actually the opposite of the second explain, excluding only lawsuits against a state by a citizen of a different state and the fourth explanation is broader. It says that in general, federal courts can’t hear cases against states, but Congress can take away a state’s sovereign immunity. If Congress does that, the state is no longer protected against suits in federal court. Meaning the citizens can then sue the state without having to worry about them being protected by the sovereign immunity. However, there are exceptions to these four definitions of the eleventh amendment. There are more than three exception but I will only be talking about the first three exceptions. The first exception is that a lawsuit can always be brought in federal court against a state’s subdivisions, meaning its countries, cities, or the municipal. The second exception is that a state can always consent to a lawsuit
AJ 200 Diaz
04-29-2014
The 11th Amendment
Do you ever wonder why law enforcements are usually the target for law suits? Or why the state can’t be sued? Well, I’ll get into more details on that further on in my essay and the reason why I asked you this question is because most likely you never actually thought about it.
The eleventh amendment states: The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State. It has four main interpretation. The first is that it’s just saying that nobody can sue a state in a federal court without the consent of the state concerned, the second explanation is that it allows a state to be sued by a citizen of another state or of a foreign country, but not by a citizen of the state itself, an example would be that a citizen from Oahu can’t sue the state but a citizen from California can, the third explanation is actually the opposite of the second explain, excluding only lawsuits against a state by a citizen of a different state and the fourth explanation is broader. It says that in general, federal courts can’t hear cases against states, but Congress can take away a state’s sovereign immunity. If Congress does that, the state is no longer protected against suits in federal court. Meaning the citizens can then sue the state without having to worry about them being protected by the sovereign immunity. However, there are exceptions to these four definitions of the eleventh amendment. There are more than three exception but I will only be talking about the first three exceptions. The first exception is that a lawsuit can always be brought in federal court against a state’s subdivisions, meaning its countries, cities, or the municipal. The second exception is that a state can always consent to a lawsuit
References: Web Sites http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CONAN-1992/pdf/GPO-CONAN-1992-7.pdf http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/the-us-constitutions-eleventh-amendment.html http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1635&context=faculty_scholarship Book (eBook) http://1285415485.reader.chegg.com/reader/book.php?id=c0831444f0d91b5e0d52a16acf9591bb Online News Article ( Los Angeles Times) ~SCOTT GLOVER and MATT LAIT, October 04, 2000, Hunt for Bodies Will Test Allegations Against Perez, http://articles.latimes.com/2000/oct/04/news/mn-31237